Either Way
by thelittleturtleduck
Summary: Her element restored, while his was simply meant to be restored.


A/n: This is something I have wanted to do for awhile, and I am actually quite proud of it! Please review! God bless!

Disclaimer: I don't own "The Legend of Korra."

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"It's just not fair!" The ten-year-old airbender cried out, throwing a rock far into the oncoming waves and watching it sink beneath the surf. The uncomfortably warm air wrapped tightly around him as his jaw clenched in ever growing frustration. He kicked the foam collecting between his toes as the tides creeped up along the sands of Air Temple Island.

In the pale moonlight, Tenzin's silver blue eyes shone with an anger that belonged to someone far beyond his years. But anyone could tell by the way his auburn and yellow colored robes hugged his body in such sophistication, that the boy was not truly a boy. He was the shadow of a child, a man stuck in the body of one so young, with a responsibility the size of a nation.

With creamy skin that matched the sand, Tenzin scratched at the deceivingly perfect surface, leaving angry streaks of red behind. He just couldn't handle it anymore. He couldn't pretend like he was okay all the time when he really wasn't. This was too much for one kid.

Everyone expected something from him. Even though his father never spoke a word of it, he knew that the man trained him in order to pass along the burden he once was forced carry. His mother coddled him like a rare relic, acting as if at any moment the boy could drop dead. The world saw him as a symbol of hope for a once lost nation, all under the false pretense that once the air nomads slowly began to be restored, the world would somehow miraculously become balanced.

All this on a ten-year-old.

At dinner, when his father had mentioned bumping up his training hours, Tenzin had to ask to be excused. The Avatar meant well, but the boy was reaching his limits. He was highly dedicated to his studies, immersing himself in the culture of those who came before him, and he trained for hours nonstop already as it was. Even though he accepted his duty, he couldn't help but feel that even the most dedicated of people had their breaking points.

And he was dangerously close to his.

"I can't do it anymore," He mumbled resolutely, shoulders slumping forward with head bowed. There were no markings of a master airbender on top of his flesh at the moment, making him slouch even further, "I'm a failure."

"You're one to talk."

Startled, Tenzin turned in the direction of the voice. Walking down the stairs from the Air Temple was his older sister.

Kya's hair was out of its usual braids, her dark chocolate tresses curled slightly from the humidity hanging in the air. Cerulean robes clung to her slender frame, matching her eyes near perfectly. But for once, Tenzin didn't see the usual glint of mischievousness and joy within the sixteen-year-old's eyes, instead he was surprised to see an unusually guarded expression upon her features.

She finished her descent down the stairs, allowing her bare toes to sink into the sand with ease. She was in her element out here, no matter how unfortunate it was that she belonged to the water instead of the breeze.

Tenzin remained frozen for a moment, halfway embarrassed that his older sister had caught the end of his temper tantrum. Turning back to the water, the boy's cheeks began to burn.

"What do you want, Kya?" The girl laughed at his grumble, though it wasn't an amused laugh as much as a bitter one.

"It doesn't matter."

And she was right. It had never been a matter of what she wanted and what she didn't. In their lives, it had always been simply a game of chance. A game where one player gained everything and the other's were forced to lose despite their best efforts.

The young airbender scoffed at that, glaring pointedly at his feet. He just wanted to be alone, but on an island, that was impossible.

"Dad sent me."

That was typical.

"I figured that much," The boy murmured, a feeling of dread filling his entire being. With hands clenched and jaw tense, he shook his head defiantly, "But no matter what he told you to do, I'm not going back up there."

His older sister huffed under her breath, crossing her arms across her chest, "Oh he just told me to check on you. He didn't want me to force you to return to the temple. He said that you have such a big responsibility on your shoulders, that you just need some private time that the rest of us don't understand."

Tenzin could sense the biting sarcasm within his sister's voice, causing him to turn to her with a brow raised, "I doubt he said that."

Kya merely shrugged at this, uncrossing her arms and allowing them to fall to her sides, "He might as well have."

The airbender couldn't help but be a bit concerned for his sister in that moment, the cold waves radiating from her tone and posture raising a little red flag that something was severely off, "Kya, are you feeling alright?"

The girl was about to answer him, but decided against it. Stepping up instead to stand next to him with her toes curling in the water. Her hand raised from her side, fingers twirling and manipulating the pool of water at their feet to travel around their ankles. Tenzin smiled slightly at this, always having been secretly jealous of his sister's ability.

There were so many waterbenders in the world, she didn't even have to worry about a training schedule. She got to take the time to be one with her element,  
to really enjoy it, while he was forced into a destiny that didn't allow him any freedom to actually become one with the air he manipulated.

Her tanned hands that so expertly controlled the water, were the same hands that had the ability to heal others with a mere glowing touch. Her element restored, while his element was simply meant to be restored.

On the other side of the spectrum though, Kya's thoughts were directly parallel to those of Tenzin's.

"I feel fine, 'zin" She murmured, using the nickname that she knew he hated. The cringe that appeared on his face caused her to release a breathy laugh, her voice tinged with an unknown sadness, "What about you?"

Relieved to see a bit of normality returning to his sister's demeanor, Tenzin simply shrugged, "I'm fine."

The girl laughed again, pausing her fingers in their movements and crossing her arms again, glancing at him sideways with expressive eyes, "We both know the other's lying."

The boy shrugged, "It doesn't matter. Everything's a charade around here anyway, being truthful about our feelings shouldn't really be that big of a deal."

Kya's sad smile showed her agreement with the statement, "It really is unfortunate though. I am happy, we've never been denied anything here. I love our family and our friends from every corner of the world. But I can't help but feel like, even though I am happy, I'm not okay."

"I know," Tenzin muttered, crossing his arms in an identical fashion to his sister's, "There's just too much."

"But I meant what I said earlier," Regaining that odd tone of sadness she had used prior, Kya shfited her weight and glanced at her brother from the corners of her eyes, "You're one to be talking about being a failure. You breathe and you have already done your job. Your only task is to be alive and have kids."

Tenzin shook his head, his arms squeezing his chest even tighter as his frustration grew, "You just don't understand. It's not that simple."

"But it is," She murmured, eyes gazing up at the moon and taking on a wistful expression, "All this training, 'zin. It's just so you can pass it along. But even if you never became a master, even if you completely failed your test and couldn't control your airbending, you would still have done your job. A job that I had failed before I was even born."

The young boy released a sigh, knowing exactly where this conversation was going after having fought over it many times with both Bumi and Kya, "You make it sound like such a bad thing that you didn't end up like me."

"It is a bad thing, Tenzin," Her voice was suddenly sharp, her gaze falling back on him with surprisingly steadiness, "You are the one who doesn't understand the situation we are in, even though you like to believe it's the other way around."

Turning to face him, Kya looked down on her brother with hands planted firmly on her hips, "You have no idea how it felt the day I began to waterbend and saw the momentary disappointment on our parent's faces. Of course you wouldn't know how that felt, because they have never looked that way at you. You don't know how it felt, hearing the council spat horrible words at Mom and Dad about Bumi simply because he couldn't bend. Bumi heard them too and was clutching on to me with all his might trying not to sob. He was four, Tenzin! Four years old and he was already branded as a failure!"

Kya took a step forward, voice growing with every example as Tenzin took a cautionary step back, the sand scraping along the bottoms of his feet, "You don't know how hard it was, to go to school and come home with a bloody nose because the kids had bullied you for not having the ability to bring back a dead nation. You also don't know how it felt, to heal Bumi's multiple bruises and scratches because he faced the same thing. Except, in his case, it was so much worse."

Brother and sister were nose to nose now, both glaring at the other as Kya released a shuddering breath and tensely muttered, "For you to tell me, I don't understand, is a joke. You are the one who has been in the dark this entire time."

With that, Kya took a few steps away from the airbender and turned her body to the sea once more, glaring at the waves that curled and crashed into the bottomless unknown of Yue Bay, "To know what it feels like to actually have freedom. To be able to fly and control the currents in the air, now that is a blessing."

"And being able to heal others isn't?" Tenzin asked quietly, though his body was still stiff with apprehension from her last outburst.

"There's an upside to every downside."

"Exactly," Tenzin pointed out, walking towards his sister and looking up at her, "That's what you're not realizing though."

Taking a step back, the airbender raised his hand above the water, gesturing to it, "So many people can do what you do, but that's the good thing. You have a choice, Kya! You can either practice your bending, or you can completely ignore it. Nothing is being forced when it comes to your life. You can do with it what you want, but I can't!"

Tenzin's arms crossed in front of him, eyes revealing an ancient sadness his sister had never known, or seen before, "Since the moment everyone learned I could airbend, I have been suffocated. I don't know freedom, and I most likely will never know it. People smother me and expect things from me, things that, like you, I cannot give. Being born without this duty wasn't a curse, it was a blessing! I wish I was like you! I would give anything to be a waterbender or a nonbender like Bumi just so my siblings would treat me normally instead of harboring all this anger towards me just like the world does towards them!"

Kya was taken aback by her brother's outburst, knowing that he had a temper, but never hearing him speak so hatefully about his birth element. It shocked her.

Both stood in silence, the waves the only sounds between them. The water continued to wrap around the siblings' ankles and moisten their skin with every touch. The moon watched sadly as both of the Avatar's children sighed, releasing the tension from their argument and leaving behind a strange, numb feeling.

"I guess we would have lost either way, huh?"

Tenzin could only nod.


End file.
